


A Conspiracy of Consorts

by Measured_Words, pentapus



Category: Books of the Raksura - Martha Wells
Genre: Advice, Arrogance, Background Azure/Stone, Courtship, F/M, Includes Art, Inspired by Art, Matriarchy, Politics, Pre-Canon, Raksura Treehouse Reversebang, Sibling Rivalry, Siblings, Stone is Awesome, Treehouse Reversebang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 20:52:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1579178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/pseuds/Measured_Words, https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentapus/pseuds/pentapus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amber is very interested in Eclipse, the visiting consort from Star Aster, but Pearl has made it very clear her clutchmate is going to have to wait until she's got her own consort first.</p><hr/><p>"I did warn them," came a dry voice – Stone, no doubt coming to check on her in after seeing the Star Aster contingent stalk off.  "He's not her type."</p><p>Amber hissed.  "No, but he's my type, and I'm never going to get what I want until she does."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Conspiracy of Consorts

**Author's Note:**

> Gorgeous art by pentapus, story by Measured_Words. Thank you to Nary and Flamebyrd for betaing - any remaining errors are entirely my own!

No one could ever say that Pearl wasn't a strong queen. She wasn't afraid to fight to get what she wanted. In fact some might say that she was a little too willing to fight, and usually it was up to Amber to play the diplomat. In this case, Pearl had been casually goading the emissary from Star Aster, a daughter queen named Veil, and ignoring the consort she'd brought with her to offer in alliance. The consort, Eclipse, was practically sitting on his hands not to do or say something that would give her an excuse to toss them out. Finally, Kettle and some other Arbora came to clear away the dishes from their dinner, giving the visitors an excuse to withdraw.

"Was that really necessary," Amber hissed at her clutchmate, her spines flickering in annoyance she no longer needed to conceal.

Pearl, by contrast, seemed satisfied and calm. "I don't like him. He's arrogant – you can already see how he treats our Arbora. They shouldn't have to put up with that, and neither should we."

Amber settled her spines with difficulty. Pearl was right – he was arrogant. "You don't think it would be fun to put him in his place?"

"If I'm his queen," Pearl replied, baring her teeth, "he should already know it." With that she turned, wings flaring, as she leapt for the vines that ran along the wall of the courtyard leading up towards her bower.

"I did warn them," came a dry voice – Stone, no doubt coming to check on her in after seeing the Star Aster contingent stalk off. "He's not her type."

Amber hissed at him out of habit. Stone didn't take it personally, and as far as she could tell he'd rather the younger queens take out their frustrations on him or their warriors than on the Arbora. "No, but he's my type, and I'm never going to get what I want until she does."

Stone just shook his head. Technically there was nothing stopping Amber from taking a consort first, but everyone could tell that Pearl would be the one to take over, eventually, from Azure. As long as she was unmated, she was the more prestigious catch – especially for a powerful court like Star Aster. Conventional wisdom said Amber would just have to wait, but, then again, Stone wasn't usually one for conventional wisdom. "I still say you should just go talk to him yourself."

"I tried that," she growled. "But even when Veil lets him out of her sight, she leaves warriors to watch him."

Stone snorted. "And you really think it's us she doesn't trust?"

Amber sighed. "I don't think it matters."

* * *

At least the rooms they'd been given were comfortable enough. The hanging basket was filled with silky pillows and soft furs, and it was as nice a place as any for Eclipse to lie around and fume. In the end he'd decided he was glad there was no chance of being given to Pearl. There were other queens, and even the ones he might have spurned back home were looking extremely attractive right now. 

Not to say that Pearl or Amber were unattractive – Azure's bloodline all seemed to be stunningly gorgeous. Wasn't Garnet at Sky Copper from her line as well? He was contemplating the trade-offs when he heard voices outside the bower.

"-resting right now," he heard Arch say. She sounded nervous, though.

"Who is it?" He'd mostly called out to put the lie to his clutchmate's favourite warrior's statement. He was pretty sure he could guess who might be dropping by. Sure enough, just as he shifted to drop back down to the floor, the first consort came in, followed closely by Arch. Eclipse shifted back to his groundling form immediately – if Stone was going to get him out from under surveillance even just for a little while, he would play as nice as possible.

"You wanna come see the consort halls?"

Excellent. "Thank you," he answered, keeping both his voice and posture properly deferential. "I would relish the opportunity."

"Yeah, I bet." Stone kept his arms casually crossed. He was old, practically a line grandfather, and certainly the oldest Raksura Eclipse had ever met. He was definitely old enough to decide when he wanted to play by the rules of formality, and now was clearly not one of those times. "Come on."

Eclipse hurried to follow him out of the room. Arch made to follow as well, but the look Stone shot her sent her scurrying off in another direction, probably to look for Veil. Stone took him on a rather perfunctory tour that lasted just long enough for someone to make them some tea. Eclipse hadn't eaten much at the meal he'd had with the queens, and was glad to see a little food laid out as well. Some of the court's other consorts, Bracken and Granite, stayed to chat while he ate, but they could apparently take a hint and left him alone with Stone after a while.

"So," the old man started once they were alone again, "what made you want to come all the way out here?"

He bristled slightly at the question, not really sure how to answer it. Pearl's attitude at the earlier meeting still stung – he'd expected to be considered a desirable catch, not snubbed and practically derided. The only satisfaction he'd had there was in seeing how cranky it made Veil to have to suffer through it as well.

"Star Aster has plenty of queens you could be given to – plenty of other consorts they could have brought too. So why you?"

Eclipse hissed at that – did Stone think he'd pissed someone off, and was being sent away? "Well, I certainly didn't come here to be insulted." 

But Stone just rolled his eyes. "I want to know what you were hoping to get out of this."

"I was hoping to find someone who would appreciate me!" Stone had got it just right before – he was just one of many back home – no one special, just another young consort in a large court with well-entrenched power structures. At Indigo Cloud, however, he would be different. And everyone knew things would be changing. Storm reigned for the moment, but she was nearly as old as Azure had been when she stepped back, and the talk was that she was expected to cede power to someone younger... But for that to happen, the younger queen in question needed to be mated, first, and the court didn't have any unclaimed consorts that were quite old enough yet.

"Sorry, kid." Stone shrugged, and Eclipse wondered just what all he knew, or thought he knew. "You're not Pearl's type."

"Yeah – I think I figured that one out." It was hard not to sulk – being rejected at Indigo Cloud was just going to make returning home all the harder. He could already see it in the way Veil's warriors were treating him, including their clutchmate Cloak. But there was more to it than that. Eclipse picked up his tea cup, pretending to examine the intricate painting. He was tired of Star Aster – tired of being alternately coddled and ordered around all the time, and being shot down and put in his place if he so much as considered pushing for any kind of independence. He wanted to be more than someone's trophy. He'd thought that someone with a reputation like Pearl's would be able to handle that, but apparently she wasn't interested in consorts who wanted to think for themselves. 

"Pearl's not our only queen, you know."

Eclipse growled. He had noticed that – one of the few consolations of the earlier meeting was that Amber had seemed as frustrated as everyone else at Pearl's behaviour. "I thought they'd already had that fight." And Amber had lost. 

Stone sighed, though Eclipse suspect it wasn't just at the memory of the various clutchmate squabbles he'd had to put up with. "Everyone here wants to find Pearl a consort. You’re not going to cut it, and I doubt anyone else at Star Aster is going to be to her liking."

Eclipse shook his head. No one else from his home court was going to want to be treated as poorly has he had been, either.

"Then – who else do you know?"

Was this some kind of test? Eclipse hadn't had the chance to travel much. This was the first other court he'd visited, while Stone was both well-travelled and well-informed. Protesting that he didn't know anyone wasn't going to get him anywhere – what had he heard? Indigo Cloud had an alliance with Sky Copper already, so that was out. They'd already know about any potential consorts there. Glass Silk was really too far away for a court this size to deal with, as they were one of Star Aster's more distant allies. But they'd had a queen break away about a generation ago now, and they might, maybe, have someone suitable. "Uhhh. Wind Sun?"

"Hmm." Stone leaned back on the cushion, looking thoughtful, but a commotion at the entrance of the hall signalled that Eclipse's brief escape from his chaperones was over. Stone didn't seem concerned though – he just sipped his tea and said they'd talk more later.

* * *

Pearl liked to sit atop the walls of the open balcony on the upper levels of the ziggurat the colony claimed as its home. The Arbora could still signal her if they needed her attention, but fewer people could, or were likely to, bother her up on her perch.

Stone, of course, had no qualms about seeking her out, landing on the crenellation beside her. She glanced his way briefly then returned her gaze to the plains below, spines flicking in her typical level of mild annoyance.

[](http://s102.photobucket.com/user/duckytimes/media/raksura/raksura_stone_pearl-1.png.html)

"Heard your visit with Star Aster didn't go well."

She hissed, and her spines flared again.

"People might start to think you don't want a consort."

"That's ridiculous," she snapped, though she still didn't turn to look at him. "I just don't want one that's anything like you."

Stone snorted. "Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that."

She did turn to look at him then, and he shifted so that he was sitting on the stones with his legs hanging over the edge. He found it more comfortable to talk in groundling anyway, and she'd be more likely to listen. Probably.

"Pearl, the court is getting concerned. Amber's getting impatient. Storm is getting impatient. Is there someone you're waiting for, someone you have your eye on?"

"No." She hissed in frustration, curling her claws into her fists.

"Are you still mad about Chance?" Chance, a consort from Solace's last clutch, had been taken by Ruby the turn before. Ruby, Storm's sister queen, had then taken him and her two other consorts and the rest of her faction to go and start their own court, leaving the local prospects for Pearl and Amber severely lacking. 

Pearl hissed again. "It's better than she's gone. There would have just been more fighting."

"Mhm." 

"The fact that I haven't liked any of the prospects you've brought me has nothing to do with Chance."

"Oh, I didn't bring you anyone. I do know you a little better than that, but we are getting a little short on options."

She cocked her head. "But not out of them."

Stone shrugged, gazing up at her from where she loomed over him. "How would you like to take a trip out to Wind Sun?"

* * *

If Pearl and Amber and their entourage were going to Wind Sun, it made sense to travel partway with Veil and Eclipse and their warriors on their way back home. Conveniently, Pearl was in a better mood now that no one was trying to pair her up with someone she found completely unsuitable, and Storm and Amber had managed to placate Veil sufficiently before they left that this leg of the trip had at least been civil. At first Arch and the other Star Aster warriors had been careful to keep Eclipse away from the two queens, though he wasn't sure if it was them or him who couldn’t be trusted to keep control of themselves. The more time passed without either of them trying to steal him away back to Indigo Cloud, however, the more they seemed to relax.

The more he'd seen of Pearl and Amber on the trip, the more he felt he'd gotten off lucky. Pearl might be making nice with Veil, but she clearly saw no reason to show him any respect.

The situation with Amber was a little more interesting. She and her clutchmate squabbled all the time, though it seemed more like habit than anything serious. They kept each other more or less in check, though Pearl was clearly dominant. And Pearl's dislike seemed to translate into Amber sticking up for him almost reflexively. It was nice to get a little respect and acknowledgement of his value even if it really had very little to do with him.

It didn't quite translate into Amber being nice to him though. She declared on the first night that Pearl had actually underestimated how arrogant he was, but there was something in the way she said it, or perhaps in the way she looked at him when she said it that made him wonder if she really found it such a terrible quality.

Amber, he noticed, was still being very careful to stay on good terms with Veil – respecting her authority as the senior queen of the three, but challenging her enough not to appear weak. She somehow managed to do it without crossing the line and outright provoking her the way Pearl did, but he wondered if that wasn't just a matter of practice. 

As the days wore on and Eclipse was given a little more freedom to mingle with their traveling companions unsupervised, he couldn't help how his attention was drawn to her more and more. Maybe it was just his imagination that she chose to fly so close to him, just a little way ahead, so that he could properly admire the flare of her wings, the way the patterns of coppery webbing hugged the curves of her body as they trailed along her dark red scales, and so that the wind carried her scent directly to him. He doubted it, but it was possible.

They were going to be splitting up the next morning, and Eclipse knew that if he was going to have any chance to try and talk to her, it had to be tonight. He pretended to fall asleep, and managed to be just convincingly restless enough that it wasn't too difficult to extricate himself once he thought Arch and Garden were sleeping. Moss, one of Amber's warriors, was on watch; she pointedly ignored his skulking.

He found Amber perched on one of the cluster of boulders, or maybe very time-worn statues, that lay scattered around the little plateau where they'd made camp. He'd meant to shift and fly up to meet her, but she apparently saw him coming, and leapt down to meet him instead. Suddenly he was very conscious that he was alone with an unfamiliar queen, that he was still unclaimed, that he was dressed relatively plainly for travel. He didn't really have any idea what he was doing, or what exactly he'd meant to say to her.

"I wondered if you might come out," she said. Eclipse thought she sounded pleased, or at least amused.

"I wondered if you might be waiting," he replied, feeling his heart beat harder.

Amber growled, stepping closer and looking him over more closely. The moonlight shimmered on her scales, making them look even darker. "So cocky. At Indigo Cloud, an attitude like that would never fly."

"Yeah?" He thought about Stone, and what he'd seen of the other consorts while he was there, and wondered. "What would you do about it?"

"Oh, I'm sure I could think so some suitable punishment." Amber spread her wings and flexed her spines and, even though he knew she wasn't really angry, Eclipse found himself shrinking back, unconsciously baring his throat to her. He wasn't actually afraid, but the hint of fear gave an edge to all the other emotions the scene was inspiring. She reached out and trailed the back of her finger down from his cheek to his neck, growling a little when he leaned into the touch. "See, that's better, isn't it?"

This wasn't really anything like what he thought a courtship would be like, but he wasn't complaining. But he still had to be careful – he didn't really want to cause any problems between the courts. "I don't know if Veil would think so..."

"Do you care what Veil thinks?" Amber took another step forward so that she was almost standing right up against him. It was hypnotic, being this close, and what he really wanted to do was just press himself into her, or maybe shift and bite her neck...

"No." He shook his head. "Yes." He should care – not about Veil specifically, maybe, but... "No." Mustering his will, Eclipse managed to step away. Amber stayed where she was, rippling her frills in satisfaction.

"I want to know what you want with me." The distance helped him feel a little more in control, and let him remind himself who he was – an unclaimed consort from a powerful court, with excellent bloodlines. He didn't have to, and shouldn't, throw himself at anyone. Even if things hadn't gone as expected at Indigo Cloud, his situation was far from desperate. "And why you think you can get it," he added.

"I want you," she said, "if it wasn't clear. For my consort." Amber folded her wings back and shifted to her Arbora form – still beautiful, but a little less overwhelming. She leaned back against one of the boulders. This close, he could tell that they really must have been carved at some point. "Isn't that what you want, why you came out here?"

"It's not really up to me." Or you, he thought, but he was trying not to sound bitter.

"No. But it will still be a good move for our courts." She smirked, flicking her tail playfully, though her tone had turned more serious. "Still desirable."

"Will be?" Of course this wasn’t going to be resolved right away. "You still have to wait for Pearl."

Amber hissed, her spines flaring. "If Pearl doesn't find someone at Wind Sun, she can wait and find a consort on her own damned time. I'm done, and if she wants to fight about it again, she'd better expect to mean it."

The speech sent a little frisson down his spine – Amber would fight for him. This was really going to happen after all. Eclipse cocked his head. "Jasper, one of our mentors... Veil had him do an augury before we left. He told her it would a turbulent visit, but good for the courts. He told me that it would herald a major personal change." He grinned. "I'd been starting to get worried."

"Well don't." She said it imperiously, straightening her stance. "Come here."

Eclipse came and stood in front of her again, letting her take him by the shoulders and then push the dark waves of his hair back away from his face. She didn't object when he put his hands on her hips.

"You are going to be mine, Eclipse, and we're going to do this properly. I have gifts for you."

Pearl had deliberately made sure he'd had a chance to see the consort gifts he wouldn't be getting from her – a polished copper knife with an elaborately carved bone handle, richly embroidered silk robes, jewels... The artisans at Indigo Cloud were clearly highly skilled. Eclipse didn't feel like he needed gifts, though surely his station demanded them, but he would have been honoured to be given them. Except... "I don't think I can accept them."

"Not yet," she agreed. "For now, take this." Amber slipped off one of her rings, and pressed it into his hand before pulling him close again. "I will come for you, on our way back. And when you're mine," she punctuated the word with a nip at his neck, "I'm going to give you everything you deserve."

Looking up into her eyes as she pried him off of her, he felt dazed. Her smile, showing just the tips of her fangs, promised more than just gifts. This was – she was – exactly what he'd wanted.

Veil was waiting for him when he got back to their camp.

"You smell like Amber," she growled, leaning closer. "Well at least she didn’t try to claim you."

Veil didn't really seem angry, or even resigned. Annoyed at him, probably, and maybe even a touch relieved, but not mad. It was a good sign. The ring was warm and solid in his fist. He grinned up at his clutchmate. "Not yet."

She hissed in exasperation, throwing up her hands and turning away.

A very good sign, he decided. And Amber would be very worth the wait.


End file.
